President Trump renewed threats Tuesday to destroy every power plant and major bridge in Iran if the Strait of Hormuz was not fully reopened by 8 p.m. Eastern, warning that “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Less than two hours before that deadline, the U.S. and Iran reached a tentative two-week ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan, under which Iran agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Trump announced the deal on social media, calling it “a double-sided ceasefire” and saying Iran had put forward a “workable” 10-point peace plan. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it accepted the terms, but warned its “hands remain on the trigger.” Crowds of people gathered in Tehran and other cities, waving flags to celebrate the news of the two-week ceasefire. Earlier on Tuesday, the U.S. struck military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island, the source of nearly all of Iran’s oil exports. U.S.-Israeli strikes also completely destroyed the Rafi-Nia Synagogue in Tehran, home to one of Iran’s few remaining Jewish communities. This is Siamek Moreh-Sedgh, a Jewish former member of Iran’s parliament.

Siamek Moreh-Sedgh: “They are not enemy of Iranian army; they are enemy of Iranian people. They are enemy of Iranian nation, because Iranian people are great people who does not want to obey the Zionism and the U.S.A. And when you do not want to obey the powerful man who wants to follow Satan, they would attack you, of course. So, their propaganda that 'we want to help the Iranian people,' I think, is a joke, unbelievable joke from them.”

Israeli forces continue to bomb Beirut, demolish homes and evacuate villages as they push deeper into the south of Lebanon. Since March 2, Israeli attacks have killed nearly 1,500 people, including 129 children, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The Israeli military struck the southern city of Tyre Wednesday after issuing forced evacuation notices to residents. More than 1.1 million people, nearly one in five Lebanese, are now displaced. This comes as Israel says the U.S.-Iran ceasefire announced Tuesday does not apply to Lebanon, despite Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif declaring an “immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewhere.” This is Naiem Saleh, a resident of Beirut.

Naiem Saleh: “The big reading for Israel is that they don’t want to stop. They want to carry on wars to blackmail the entire region, naturally. Where will this lead? To more wars and more destruction. In all cases, Lebanon to be excluded, Iran won’t abandon Lebanon. Iran certainly won’t abandon Lebanon.”

Despite the ceasefire, Iran continued to launch retaliatory strikes throughout the region. Three boys in southern Israel were wounded by an Iranian missile fired after Trump announced the truce. A security official tells The Times of Israel that the Israeli Air Force is continuing to carry out strikes in Iran. In the UAE, operations were suspended at the Habshan gas complex due to fires from falling projectile debris after what Abu Dhabi described as a “successful interception” of an Iranian missile. Earlier on Tuesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had attacked Saudi Arabia’s Jubail petrochemical complex in retaliation for strikes on an Iranian petrochemical facility the night before. The King Fahd Causeway, a series of bridges linking Saudi Arabia to the island country of Bahrain, closed again Tuesday amid Iranian missile attacks.

Oil prices swung wildly Tuesday as the U.S.-Iran war entered a new phase. Brent crude surged to $117 a barrel as President Trump threatened to demolish Iran’s civilian infrastructure. After the announcement of the two-week ceasefire, oil prices plunged more than 16%, falling below $100 a barrel for the first time in weeks. The head of the International Air Transport Association says it would still take months for jet fuel prices to stabilize once the Strait of Hormuz fully reopens.

Willie Walsh: “If it were to reopen and remain open, I think it would still take a period of months to get back to where supply needs to be, given the disruption to the refining capacity in the Middle East, which is a critical part of the global supply of refined products, and not just jet fuel, for other products, as well. So it will probably take months.”

American freelance journalist Shelly Kittleson has been released after being held for one week by the Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah. Forty-nine-year-old Kittleson was abducted from a Baghdad street corner on March 31. The militia freed her in a prisoner swap after Iraqi authorities agreed to release several members of the militia who had previously been detained. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed her release, saying the U.S. is working to support her return from Iraq.

In Louisiana, 22-year-old biochemistry student Annie Ramos walked out of a federal immigration jail on Tuesday, five days after ICE agents entered her husband’s Army base to arrest her. As part of her release, Ramos was fitted with an ankle monitor and told to report to ICE every week. She had just married 23-year-old Staff Sergeant Matthew Blank days prior to her arrest. Ramos was brought to the United States from Honduras as an infant. In 2020, she applied to the DACA program — that’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — but her application was never processed.

In California, federal immigration agents shot a man Tuesday after stopping his car in the Central Valley town of Patterson. The shooting left Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez hospitalized. ICE Director Todd Lyons said in a statement that agents fired “defensive shots” after Hernandez weaponized his sedan in an attempt to run over an officer. Video obtained by Sacramento NBC affiliate KCRA-TV shows Hernandez reversing away from officers who appear to be reaching into his car. The officers draw their guns as Hernandez backs into another car, then appear to open fire as Hernandez drives forward. ICE has not said how many shots were fired. ICE agents have shot at least eight people in 2026.

Meanwhile, ICE has arrested more than 800 people following tips ​shared by Transportation Security Administration officials since the start of Donald Trump’s second term. That’s according to Reuters, which reports the TSA supplied ICE with records on more than 31,000 travelers for possible immigration enforcement.

Trump administration officials told a federal judge Tuesday that they still seek to deport Kilmar Ábrego García to Liberia — a country to which he has no ties. The Maryland father first made headlines in March when he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador, where he was held in the notorious CECOT mega-prison. Ábrego García was returned to the United States after months of public outrage, but the Trump administration has since tried repeatedly to send him to one of several African countries who’ve agreed to accept third-country deportees. Ábrego García’s lawyers have argued that if he must be deported, it should be to Costa Rica, which has agreed to accept deportees who cannot safely return to their home countries.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has threatened to withdraw Customs and Border Protection officers from airports in sanctuary cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration agents. The move would effectively halt international travel, tourism and commerce though major airports in Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, San Francisco and elsewhere. This comes as the partial government shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security has entered its 54th day, with no signs that it will end before Congress returns from a two-week recess on April 14.

A United Nations expert is warning that Mexico is facing a “toxic crisis” driven in part by the United States’ use of its southern neighbor as a waste disposal site. Marcos Orellana, the U.N. special rapporteur on toxics and human rights, conducted an 11-day investigative mission in Mexico, finding that weak environmental regulations and a lack of oversight have allowed pollution to accumulate, turning communities into what he called “sacrifice zones.” Government records show the U.S. exports hundreds of thousands of tons of hazardous waste to Mexico each year, including lead-acid car batteries. Meanwhile, Mexico has increased imports of waste to be burned as cheap fuel for industry. Orellana said the result is the “legalized poisoning of people.”

Vice President JD Vance traveled to Budapest Tuesday, where he appeared alongside Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán five days before Sunday’s parliamentary elections and openly campaigned for his reelection. Orbán’s Fidesz party is currently trailing the pro-EU opposition Tisza party by double digits in the polls. Orbán has been prime minister of Hungary since 2010, making him the European Union’s longest-serving leader. Here’s Vice President Vance on Tuesday.

Vice President JD Vance: “Will you stand against the bureaucrats in Brussels? Will you stand for sovereignty and democracy? Will you stand for Western civilization? Will you stand for freedom, for truth and for the God of our fathers? Then, my friends, go to the polls in the weekend. Stand with Viktor Orbán.”

Meanwhile, President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. traveled to Bosnia’s Republic of Srpska in a visit widely seen as a gesture of support for Milorad Dodik, the pro-Russian leader who was stripped of his mandate last year after a court banned him from politics. The Biden administration had imposed sanctions on Dodik in 2022 over his separatist policies, which were later lifted by the Trump administration last year. During his visit, Don Jr. called the European Union “a bit of a mess” and predicted a “major fracture” between the bloc’s eastern and western member states.